Observe and Report (2009) - 6/10

After all the buzz about it being this crazy dark comedy, Observe and Report just wasn't as funny as I'd hoped. Even though I love Seth Rogen's persona and laugh in movies like Pineapple Express and most recently MvsA, here he is completely unethical and a degenerate character that I didn't find cool at all. The movie tries so hard to balance this weird type of dorky humor like Napoleon Dynamite or Jody Hill's previous film, The Foot Fist Way with this outrageous violence but never lets one become the theme over the other. Although the secondary characters were quite hilarious with their uniqe brand of dumb jokes, I never really cared for what happened to them or felt sorry for Ronnie's slow descent into madness. It's hard to understand that since he's bi-polar and off his meds we're supposed to feel sorry for him and let him get away with the shit he does, but it just wasn't realistic and the jokes felt forced to make sure they added enough swear words and crude jokes to boot. Even the ending totally came out of left field as I didn't laugh at all but was more shocked by how it turns out wondering what was funny about a huge dick swinging on screen and why they didnt' arrest this crazy mall cop when they had the chance. I'm actually excited to see Paul Blart now so I don't have to see someone take their job so seriously. Observe and Report was a disappointment in that it only made me laugh a couple times while also being so promising but failing to deliver on the dark comedy aspects I have seen recently like Fargo. Avoid this one till DVD.